Wednesday, September 15, 2010

The question with regard to abortion is not when life begins—after all, both the sperm and the unfertilized egg are alive—but when consciousness begins, which is one of the knottiest problems of that knottiest and most immature of all the sciences, neurology.

Anyone who contends that a single cell (spermatozoon, ovum, or fertilized egg or zygote) is a human being falls far short of even elementary honesty, let alone the honest assessment of the greater complexities of morality, rationality, philosophy, science and medicine called for here.

The brain, which is the basis of the individual, does not finish developing for about twelve months after birth, at which point linguistic acquisition begins, etc., etc.

Speaking brutally, that should be the cutoff point for abortion.

But that would legalize infanticide, which I presume no one would be comfortable with, not even me.

And the brain first begins showing overall coordinated electrical activity at seven months of gestation, provable by EEG.

And that should be the point at which any rational weighing of the mother's against the fetus' interests should begin, with the balance heavily tilted in the mother's favor to start with.

Except in cases of rape and incest, since if the State enforces carriages to term of pregnancies due to rape or incest, it becomes a collaborator or co-conspirator before, during and after the fact in all rape and incest.

And in cases of severe and irreparable physical and especially neurological malformation/dysfunction, since anyone who deliberately carries such pregnancy to term should be punished as if they inflicted that state upon a normal and healthy child, and if the State enforces carriages to term of such pregnancies, it becomes a collaborator or co-conspirator before, during and after the fact in all such inflictions.